Yesterday, the Oilers re-signed Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to a seven-year, $42 million extension. As the cap hit on the deal matches those given to Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, the expectation is that Edmonton will also re-sign 2012 first overall pick Nail Yakupov on similar terms a year from now. But what about the fifth key member of Edmonton’s young core? Defenceman Justin Schultz is a year away from being a restricted free agent, and he’s a player of great importance to the team.

One of the big differences (aside from position) between Schultz and the Oilers’ star forwards is that due to his age when he signed, Schultz’s entry-level contract is just two years, rather than three. Edmonton re-signed Hall and Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins after two years of NHL play, and one year from free agency. If they want two years of data before making a decision on Schultz, they will wait until next summer. If they want to get him re-signed well before his contract expires, the time is now (and, like colleague David Staples, I think now is a good idea).

What kind of money might Schultz command? To give an indication, I looked for young defenders with similar scoring numbers who had recently signed a contract with their teams. This is what the group looks like:

Time on ice should likely be considered the primary indicator here. Doughty, Pietrangelo and Ekman-Larsson are all top-pairing defenders on their respective teams, guys that play 25+ minutes per game. While offensively, Schultz is in the ballpark with these players, he isn’t playing nearly the same role and so the big contract in the $5.5 million-plus range shouldn’t really be seen as market value.

That leaves Del Zotto and Voynov. Conveniently for this exercise, Del Zotto signed a short-term, low-dollars deal (a so-called “bridge” contract) while Voynov signed a long-term contract with Los Angeles. The year-by-year salaries are actually reasonably close through the first two seasons.

Are those players good comparables for Schultz beyond ice-time and point totals? Reasonably so. In terms of draft pedigree, Voynov and Del Zotto come out slightly ahead but all were early picks in the 2008 Draft. All three have impressive track records since that point – Voynov and Del Zotto in the NHL, Schultz largely in college. All are second-pairing defencemen at this stage in their NHL career, and all are good offensive defenders with some work to do in their own end. Schultz’s offensive potential likely eclipses that of the other two to some degree, but both Voynov and Del Zotto have longer records of professional success.

If it were my decision, I’d seek to sign Schultz at a Voynov-like deal as soon as possible. A bridge deal is a bad choice for the Oilers – they want to bring the cap hit down after the first few years by including the bridge dollars in a long-term contract, since their window to contend should be open for a long time to come.

Something like this might be a good starting point:

2013-14 (last year of current deal): $0.925 million salary, $3.775 million cap hit

2014-15: $2.75 million salary

2015-16: $3.25 million salary

2016-17: $4.25 million salary

2017-18: $4.75 million salary

2018-19: $5.5 million salary

2019-20: $6.0 million salary

2020-21: $6.5 million salary

Put it all together and it’s a seven-year contract with a $4.75 million cap hit – well clear of Del Zotto’s deal and significantly ahead of Voynov’s but trailing Ekman-Larsson’s contract. The primary selling feature for the Oilers is that it’s likely to be a very nice value contract down the road (and in the here and now represents less than a $1.0 million increase on Schultz’s bonus-inflated entry-level cap hit). The advantages for the player are a) guaranteed money b) no nasty fight over a bridge contract and c) the promise that the team will have the financial flexibility to contend thanks to deals like these.

It doesn’t have to be structured like that – once the total value of the contract is sorted out, the exact distribution of the dollars is likely to matter more to player than team. But the important thing for the Oilers is to get a key piece on a long-term, cap-friendly deal – not paying more than market value just because the forwards are all getting $6.0 million per year.

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